=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1628/nht_paper_3
|storemode=property
|title=Yarncraft: Location Aware Narratives in Virtual Space
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1628/nht_paper_3.pdf
|volume=Vol-1628
|authors=Tom Blount,Jonathan Scott,David E. Millard
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/ht/BlountSM16
}}
==Yarncraft: Location Aware Narratives in Virtual Space==
Yarncraft: Location Aware Narratives in Virtual Space Tom Blount Jonathan Scott David E. Millard Web and Internet Science Web and Internet Science Web and Internet Science Electronics and Computer Electronics and Computer Electronics and Computer Science Science Science University of Southampton University of Southampton University of Southampton Southampton, United Kingdom Southampton, United Kingdom Southampton, United Kingdom tb12g09@ecs.soton.ac.uk js3g10@ecs.soton.ac.uk dem@ecs.soton.ac.uk ABSTRACT physical location can provide readers with a more immersive ex- Location-aware narratives are a form of hypertext in which the path perience [9]. Location-aware narratives have been developed to of the narrative is determined by the reader’s physical location. In aid education and learning by providing an engaging link between this paper we adapt an existing model of location-aware sculptural practice and theory [1, 12], to create interactive games [3, 4] and hypertext to make it suitable for navigating in virtual space, and simply to tell stories about a particular location [5, 11]. create an extension to an existing virtual world to demonstrate how hyper-narratives written in this framework may be consumed in Virtual worlds are computer-simulated environments in which users both physical and virtual space. We demonstrate the unique po- can interact with one another and the environment itself [8] for a va- tential of virtual spaces by not only adapting the narrative to match riety of purposes, from meeting and socialising with other users [7], the reader’s location, but by adapting the reader’s location to match to learning and education tools [2], to business applications such the narrative. In doing so, we lay the groundwork for an experi- as providing a new means of tele-conferencing [6]. Virtual social ment into whether the immersive effects of location-aware hyper- worlds have also been used in the context of presenting an innova- narratives can be heightened by leveraging the inherent benefits of tive way of telling narratives, particularly in games [13], many of virtual worlds. which can be considered as hypernarratives themselves. Millard et al. have proposed a model of sculptural hypertext, suit- Categories and Subject Descriptors able for location-aware narratives, that links existing theory with H.1 [Models and Principles]: General observable structures of hypertext, and opens the possibility of mov- ing towards a standardised format for viewers and authoring tools Keywords [10]. This model consists of three structures — canyons, deltas narrative; location-aware; virtual spaces; virtual worlds; and plains — that can be combined to represent all possible pat- terns of location-aware narrative. These three structures are built up of atomic “cards”, using different combinations of constraints 1. INTRODUCTION and links between them. In canyons, they form a linear sequence In this paper we adapt Millard et. al.’s location-aware model of with transitions from one page to another; in deltas they form a sculptural hypertext for use in virtual worlds. This involves modi- branching sequence in which each page can link to multiple pages; fications to the GeoYarn format to allow for stories that are usable and in plains they remain “floating” unconnected, and can be ac- on a range of clients with different levels of information availabil- cessed in any order the reader chooses. Constraints (such as being ity; the ability for stories to define complex location types; and read in a particular order, being read at a particular time, or being “events”, which modify the world in response to the story. read in a particular location) can be imposed on these structures to build more complex structures. 2. BACKGROUND Hypertextual narratives are digital narratives that do not necessar- 3. YARNCRAFT ily need to be read in a constrained order and may branch in mul- Yarncraft is an attempt to leverage Millard et al.’s location-aware tiple places, allowing for many different tellings and re-tellings. A model of sculptural hypertext and in particular to adapt the frame- location-aware hypertextual narrative can detect the reader’s posi- work of the GeoYarn client they developed to allow arbitrary nar- tion in space (through, for example, their mobile phone’s GPS), ratives to be traversed in either physical or virtual space. allowing an author to guide a user around a specific set of locations with which they tell their story. Linking a narrative to the reader’s For our example, we tailor one of the stories marked up in their framework for use in a physical space around the city of Southamp- ton to be used instead in Minecraft1 , a creative sandbox virtual world that allows players to explore a stylised, procedurally-generated environment, build structures and artwork, and interact with friendly and hostile non-player characters (NPCs). This was a two-stage process: firstly, tailoring the framework to be suitable for virtual locations in general (and particularly for use 1 http://minecraft.net/ "locations": [ "locations": [ { { "type": "TagLocation", "type": "TagLocation", "tag": "indoors" "tag": "Big Ben" } }, ] { "type": "TagLocation", "tag": "Clock tower" Figure 1: Example of a TagLocation }, { "locations": [ "type": "TagLocation", { "tag": "Building" "type": "TagLocation", } "nearby": "water", ] "distance": 5 } ] Figure 3: Example of fallback locations Figure 2: Example of a TagLocation with an optional distance device or set of devices, assumptions can be made about the avail- parameter able hardware and sensors (for example, that a hypertext designed to be consumed on a mobile phone will be provided with GPS coor- dinates). However location-aware narratives in virtual worlds have within Minecraft) and secondly, developing a Minecraft mod (a access to many more potential information sources at higher levels modification to the base game) to read the framework and present of accuracy, without the requirement of (additional) sensory hard- the narrative to the user. ware. For example, weather data, light level, noise level, as well as more abstract or esoteric information such as the emotional state of Our modifications to the framework primarily concerned four ar- nearby people, or the number of spiders within 100m. When de- eas: the level of abstraction available when defining locations, the signing for a much wider range of devices, platforms and worlds, composition of complex location definitions, the ability to handle with a wide range of capabilities and features, it is important to be concepts and locations described in a story that may be undefined able to provide the intended experience using alternative sensors in a particular virtual world, and the ability for stories to trigger when the preferred sensor is unavailable. events which modify the conditions of the virtual world. In our modification of the GeoYarn format, locations are stored as 3.1 Abstract location information an ordered list of objects. Each location in the list is one possi- Millard et al.’s framework allows for two types of locations to be ble match for the location required by the given page. A client used: precise locations, that map to specific areas defined by poly- should attempt to match the earliest listed location that they have gons of latitude and longitude points; and abstract locations that are the appropriate sensors for. This mechanism allows authors to de- defined by strings such as “Big Ben”, or concepts such as “quiet”, fine several “fallback” locations that steadily become more general. “green” or “crowded”. For example, in the example shown in 3, the page would ideally Due to the fact that precise locations cannot be generalised across take place near Big Ben2 , though for physical locations outside of physical and/or virtual worlds (aside from exceptional cases) our Westminster any clock tower would suffice, and for virtual worlds proposal primarily concerns additions to abstract location types. which have no clock tower, or locations that have no concept of a clock tower, any building would suffice. Figure 2 shows a tag location with an optional distance parameter, that allows pages to be read when the user is in the vicinity of, in This mechanism can ensure that stories are consumable on a large this case, water. While we specify this distance in meters in the range of devices. However, this can still fail, either because fall- framework, it is up to the client/mod to interpret this value and backs have not been defined or because they are still too specific scale it as necessary. for a particular client to interpret (for example, if a client attempts to interpret a story designed for a very specific world). 3.2 Undefined locations One issue faced by location-aware narratives, both physical and vir- When these failures occur, and clients are unable to attempt to tual, is the possibility that there may be no appropriate locations in match any of the possible locations, the user should be presented the nearby vicinity. For example, part of the story may be set in a with a map whereby they can define a location that best approxi- factory, but the user may struggle to access this if they are travers- mates the query. ing the narrative in a national park. Virtual spaces face this same problem, but a further step removed: the very concept of a factory 3.3 Combined locations may not even exist in a particular virtual world. While this can be As well as allowing authors to define fallback locations, our addi- mitigated in part by allowing authors to specify suitable worlds for tions to the GeoYarn format allow for the use of “AndLocation”, the consumption of their narrative, a truly generalisable framework “OrLocation” and “NotLocation”. These operators allow for the must provide mechanisms for handling this issue. composition of simple locations to create more specificity, without Similarly, when designing a location-aware hypertext for a fixed 2 The Great Bell of the clock in Elizabeth Tower, Westminster "locations": [ { "type": "AndLocation", "location1": [ { "type": "TagLocation", "tag": "indoors" } ], "location2": [ { "type": "TagLocation", "level": "noisy" } ] } ] Figure 5: “A place where people gather” Figure 4: Example of building complex locations using an And- Location requiring each client to provide the full definitions of these loca- tions. The location in 4 defines a noisy, indoor area. Without the use of AndLocation, this would require each client to provide a tag representing this type of location. Note also that the locations defined as part of AndLocation, Or- Location, and NotLocation are also defined using arrays, and ex- hibit the same fallback behaviour as other location arrays. In this case, it would be pragmatic to specify fallbacks for systems that do not support the "noisy" or "indoors" tags. 3.4 Events Location-aware narratives based in the physical world allow the story to be adapted to the user’s location either through branching the story as the user moves through space, or by modifying the Figure 6: “Suddenly, a crowd appeared” tone of a page to suit the user’s current location. However, with a virtual world, the world itself can also be adapted as the narrative progresses. This can be done to shape the general aesthetic and en- vironment of the virtual world to be in keeping with the narrative (as a whole, or at a specific point in time); for example, altering the weather or light levels. This can also be leveraged if the au- thor wishes to trigger specific events during the course of the story. In Figure 5 the player is instructed to go to a place where people gather. Due to the state of mind of the protagonist of the story, it appears deserted at first. But, when the player arrives in Figure 6, a crowd of friendly NPC villagers appear around them. "events": [ { Figure 7 shows the implementation of the “spawn” event, which "type": "spawn", allows the creation of NPCs in the virtual world. The “villager” "npc": "villager", can be mapped directly to the villager NPCs available in Minecraft "number": 150 but implementations for other virtual worlds would need to map } this concept on to some acceptable alternative. ] If this story is to be played in the physical world, then these events Figure 7: Example of a spawn event would not execute and so they should be used to optionally strengthen or demonstrate the content of the story, rather than as a replacement for it. 3.5 Client 5. REFERENCES Our modification to Minecraft acts as the client for reading the nar- [1] C. Ardito, P. Buono, M. F. Costabile, R. 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